Arab News, Tuesday, Jan 12, 2021 | Jamadi Al Awwal 28, 1442
Saudi Arabia’s revolutionary zero carbon city ‘The Line’ hailed as dawn of tech-based future
Saudi Arabia: Saudi officials and citizens have welcomed the
Kingdom’s revolutionary zero carbon city, announced on Sunday by Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman.
The city — named “The Line” — will be a car-free city within Saudi Arabia’s
futuristic NEOM business hub along the Red Sea coast.
The construction is set to start in the first quarter of this year. It will
allow 1 million residents to live in a “zero cars, zero streets and zero carbon
emissions” city but around nature.
“It is a new era of civilization, a new model for a city which is clean, proper
and with zero carbon,” Saudi economist Mazen Al-Sudairi told Arab News welcoming
this major step. “This will improve the efficiency of humankind.”
He added that Saudi Arabia is moving toward a new data-based civilization as
compared to the older civilization, which was built on the flow of water and
vegetation.
Moreover, Al-Sudairi believes that this model will attract more foreign direct
investment and provide a tech-based future.
Saudi Minister of Communication and Information Technology, Abdullah Alswaha,
said on Twitter: “Saudi Arabia enters the great book of history as an innovative
force for the 21st century.”
He noted that the city is moving to green and renewable energy, stressing that
the region can exploit solar energy and winds by more than 70 percent, which
makes NEOM one of the top three places around the world for energy efficiency.
In addition, NEOM also has the capability to produce green hydrogen, he told Al-Arabiya
on Monday.
He added that the futuristic city will receive huge cloud computing investments,
amounting to more than $1.5 billion.
The crown prince said the backbone of investment would come from Saudi Arabia
and the Kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund — the Public Investment Fund — and local
and international investors for the NEOM project.
Saudi Arabia has placed foreign investment as a main focus in its plans for
economic development.
Even in light of the global economic tension resulting from the coronavirus
disease (COVID-19) pandemic, foreign investment in the Kingdom jumped by 2
percent in the third quarter of 2020, Al-Eqtisadiah reported.
Saudi Deputy Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, said on Twitter: “It is
one of the major projects that places people first and employs technology to
serve societies.”
The project is a direct response to some of the vital challenges facing
humanity, such as infrastructure, pollution, traffic and human congestion, NEOM
said.
Education Minister Hamad bin Mohammed Al-Asheikh also welcomed the announcement
saying: “The crown prince’s global vision for The Line places the humans’ life,
health, environment, productivity and entertainment first.
“The project is characterized by the principles of global humanity, economic
diversity and artificial intelligence, and the enhancement of research and
innovation opportunities for the future industry.”